


Sweet Like Rot

by InediblePeriwinkle



Category: Henry Stickmin Series (Video Games)
Genre: Mini Fic, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Revenged Ending | R (Henry Stickmin), with a couple edits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:55:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26569909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InediblePeriwinkle/pseuds/InediblePeriwinkle
Summary: Was it worth it? Henry hadn't thought that far ahead. Hadn't thought of anything but wreaking havoc and inflicting the same pains he'd been shown.Henry dies. Everyone dies with him, but he's still alone.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 108





	Sweet Like Rot

Henry knew, the moment the bullet hit a metal-reinforced spine, that he was done. 

Reg had always been a good shot. 

He’d been helpless to do anything but watch, at that point. The launch site came into focus, all too fast and too slow at once, creeping up on him as he slumped over the chair, staring. 

He’d closed his eyes last minute. He wasn’t proud of the fact. He remembered nothing but the noise. It was the worst sound he ever heard, a crash of creaking, scraping, and he swore screaming before an intense heat. Nothing else after that. 

However he picked himself up, he only had time to hear Reginald’s last words before the other slumped, dead, among all the corpses of their former underlings. 

The previous leader stared at his dead body, limp and hanging, swaying in the wind. That was it, then. There it was. His great revenge. Dissolved into a single question, one spoken with no malice. Just sadness. Grief.

Henry couldn’t stand. The grass was slick with oil and blood, coated in debris. There was a sharp pain in his chest, his lungs. He was covered in burns and couldn’t see out of his left eye. 

He knew it the moment he was shot, but now he was forced to confront it. 

He was dying. 

He dragged himself across the grass, heaving his body over mangled metal and fleshy bits he didn’t stop to observe. He wasn’t going to die here, not like this. Not on Reg’s terms. 

Henry’s broken fingers closed around a thick club. He pulled it towards himself, using it as leverage. 

You could barely tell airship from rocket, they were both so mixed and mangled. He stared, blearily, over a mountain of twisted structures, torn hats, lifeless bodies. 

He could apply a name to more than a few of them. The ones he could recognize, anyway. Most were just...not people anymore. Little left.

Vomiting was not an option. This couldn't be the last thing he saw. Reg looked him in the eyes and left him to die once, he wasn’t going to let it happen twice. 

His hand, the metal one, his only functional hand, was sparking. He was pretty sure something had punctured his chest and was afraid to look, afraid to see him impaled on his own spine. No one to save him this time. He’d die as he lived his whole life: 

Alone. 

He could barely swallow, choking on his own spit. It tasted like metal and mud. He staggered through the trees, into another metal husk. 

Henry braced his arm against it, smelling the burn of flesh rather than feeling it. He unstuck his arm, pointedly not looking down, staring at the insignia on the side of the aircraft. 

Something flit in his memory, a hazy and tired memory. Something he was pretty sure he’d forgotten up until now, it had been so insignificant. 

Henry hobbled around the side, seeing a body trying to crawl from the wreckage. He stared at it, the blackened military jacket and shattered red headphones. 

Oh God, that one. What was his name? That guy. Pilot man. Headphones. 

The guy had stopped, was heaving, ground slick behind him like a snail's trail. Henry felt like he was misting blood as he breathed but he still managed to step forward. Just a bit more. 

The pilot clearly heard him coming. He pushed himself onto his side, shredded fingers fumbling for a weapon he no longer had on his person. 

He was in bad shape. The skin was peeled from his hands, his clothes still smouldering in places. Something was wrong with his face, something broken perhaps, and his skin was an unearthly grey. 

He must have been caught in the collision. Hit him and he went down too, burning along with all of them, all the rest of them. 

The pilot was staring at Henry with an unfocused sort of hate. 

The previous Toppat leader slumped to the ground, gripping a nearby boulder to try and ease his way, keeping eye contact all the while. 

The other kept watching, as if Henry were going to magically spring back up and twirl an evil moustache at him. Like it was all a trick, a trap. 

Not going to happen. He had to know Henry was a dead man. He looked like one himself. 

Boy, the airship felt like a lifetime ago. He remembered the guy being cheerful, laid-back, much less rude to him than the others. Pity he got into the crosshairs of Henry’s revenge. 

Was this a win, too? It didn’t feel like it. 

None of it did if he were actually honest with himself. He went into this knowing he had borrowed time. Wanting to make them hurt, feel pain, suffer for as long as he was breathing. 

Mission complete.

Everyone was dead. 

The government agent was still looking at him, breathing so labored he could hear it from here. Henry slowly licked his lips and tasted ash. 

“Charlie?” Wasn’t that what the Captain had called him, once? Henry’s voice was slurred, but the pilot jolted regardless. 

Recognition sparked in his eyes, and suddenly the hate was no longer distant. His eyes were cold. Accusatory. Blood dripped from between his lips and down his throat. 

_Was it worth it?_

Henry felt a twinge of sorrow. Reg. RHM. Harry, Burt, Thomas, Geoffrey. Charlie. He’d never call it guilt. Never, not ever, they were all at fault as well. It was their fault as much as his. 

Charlie’s breaths were ragged, rattling. He was clutching at his chest. 

For a moment there, he thought he had it made. Leadership of the greatest thieving organization in the world. A life of luxury and heists and comradery. He’d felt fulfilled, he’d been _happy_ and they _they took that away from him_. He asked for _help_. He wanted to go _home_. How fucking dare they take that away. 

He was either bleeding or crying and too far gone to care. 

This wasn’t the blaze of glory he expected. Reg wasn’t sorry and never would be. His last words were something along the lines of a disappointed father. He’d never have that closure and he’d die for trying. 

Feet away, Charlie was still and silent. 

Henry stared up at the sky, at the endless void the Toppats would never breach now. 

Charlie ought to have just stayed out of it. They’d destroyed themselves in the end. 

No, Henry had. He’d never really been a Toppat, had he? Who would bother following him if he’d asked instead of incinerated them all? No one. 

No one. 

No one. 

He couldn’t feel his remaining limbs anymore. Not cold, not hot, just…nothing. 

That was the last thought he was able to remember. 

When Charles Calvin’s body was recovered a day later, he was credited for the crash. He was given high honors and sent back to his family. 

The nearby corpse was an anomaly with cybernetic enhancements. ID’d as Henry Stickmin, a common thief, and not given a second thought. 

The world rejoiced the fall of the Toppat Clan, and the ground in that area of the jungle burned for three months straight.


End file.
